Disintegration (story #5)
by Leyla but you can call me spa
Summary: Kerry returns to Chicago alone, and must deal with the fallout of her actions.


Disintegration

by Leyla Harrison

sparkle72@videotron.ca

Disclaimer: Now that I've actually made them miserable, I'm ready to admit that John Carter and Kerry Weaver are not mine. But I still wish they were. Any other characters you see or hear about aren't mine either. Sad, isn't it? 

Rating: mild R for adult situations/themes

Timeline: This story takes place after the events of May Day, and has general references to that episode. This is the fifth in a series of Weaver/Carter stories I'm writing. You should read the first four, Disclosure, Revelation, Confrontation and Ecstacy, in order to understand this one, especially since this one picks up where Ecstacy left off. The previous four stories are located on my webpage:

http://www.geocities.com/sparkle_weaver

Thank you: again, to Shann – these stories would not be nearly as nice if it weren't for your willingness for me to keep sending them back and forth to you all day long for your comments. 

Summary: Kerry returns to Chicago, and must deal with the fallout of her actions.

***

I get home as the morning light is rising over the city; I unlock the door and make my way inside, leaving my suitcase by the front door. The house is stuffy. It's been hot in Chicago while I've been away. I switch on the air conditioning and go into the kitchen, where the solid red light of the answering machine taunts me.

See? He didn't call. He thinks it's a mistake too.

I don't want to contemplate what this could mean.

Maybe he hasn't woken up yet. Maybe he doesn't know yet. 

But that doesn't make sense; he was on day passes, not overnight passes, so he would have had to have been back at the center before eleven the previous night. Eleven was the time I arrived at the airport in Atlanta although I didn't get on my flight till one-thirty in the morning.

Maybe he's too angry to call.

This is the most likely, and I try to imagine his face. I've seen him angry before at the hospital, angry at the injustices in the world, the things that just aren't right. I wonder how he deals with his anger.

Maybe he's too hurt to call.

This is the one that causes me the most grief. I don't want to ponder the fact that I have hurt him, although I know it's impossible for me to have not. The knowledge of this fills my body and mind and I feel physically weak at the thought.

I don't have to be back at work until Monday. Three whole days to myself, and not a clue what to do with them.

Wearily, I decide to unpack my suitcase, and when I'm done, I fall into bed, still fully clothed. I haven't slept over 24 hours and it's catching up with me. I refuse to take off my clothes yet, the clothes that cling to my body like Carter's scent does.

I fall asleep almost instantly, and blissfully, I do not dream.

***

I'm awakened later in the afternoon by the ringing of the phone, and I struggle back from the depths of a groggy haze as my hand reaches for the receiver by the bed.

"Hello?"

Silence.

I pull myself up in bed, more awake now.

"Hello?" I repeat, but I still hear nothing. "Carter?" I ask quietly, and the line is disconnected. I hang up the phone.

***

The next morning, I decide to go back to work even though I'm not expected back yet. There's no point in sitting at home, nursing my wounds. I trudge into work, finding the ER just as I left it – running smoothly.

"Welcome back, Kerry," Mark calls to me as we pass each other just outside the ambulance bay. "Did you have a nice vacation?"

I hesitate. "Nice, yes," I manage to get out, and then hurry off to the lounge.

The day is a busy one – the summer heat brings out the worst in people. By mid-afternoon, I'm fully immersed in work, my mind focused on nothing but the patients coming in a steady stream through the doors.

"Dr. Weaver, we've got a stabbing coming in, ETA five minutes," Abby Lockhart gets my attention by the desk.

"Set up Trauma One," I call to her, and she nods.

The paramedics roll in with two gurneys – one with the victim, one with the assailant. I get the first one, the victim. "What have we got?"

"Twenty-nine year old male, two stab wounds to the abdomen in the right upper quadrant, one in the lower right quadrant, and two in the back. BP is 90/60, pulse 120. We gave him two liters of fluids in the field – "

The bullet is cut off by the screaming from the gurney behind me. "Goddamn you! You can't stop me!"

"What the hell…" 

The paramedic shrugs at me, glancing back. "That's the guy who did it. Psych case, no question about it. These two are roommates, from what we got from the victim. That one just snapped – "

"I don't know what happened to him," the patient on the gurney that I'm rolling tells me through a haze of pain. "He's been acting strange for weeks and then he just came in the living room with a knife and started stabbing me." He's practically sobbing. "I don't know what happened…"

Mark meets us as we turn the corner, just in time to see me backing away. 

"Kerry?" he asks, and I look up at him, my face blank.

I glance down at the gurney, which is covered in the blood of our patient, and he looks too. We don't need to discuss it; we both are thinking the same thing. We are both back to the night of Valentine's Day. 

"Please don't let me die," the victim moans.

"Get him into Trauma One," I tell the paramedic tremulously, and then I turn to Mark. "I'll be right back."

"Kerry, it's – "

"I'll be right back, Mark."

I start down the hall, past the second gurney, where the assailant is still yelling. "You! I see you," he yells, reaching out and grabbing my arm, stopping my escape down the hall. I try to pull away, but his grip is tight. "I know what you did! I know!"

My face goes white and it takes two of the paramedics to unclench his fingers from around my forearm. "Sorry about that, Dr. Weaver."

"Kerry?" Luka appears at my side. Malucci is with him, for once silent, just watching.

"Give him five of Haldol," I manage, and head back towards the lounge.

"Kerry!" I hear Luka call after me, but I ignore him and keep walking.

Once inside the lounge, I fall into a chair and cover my eyes with my hand, trying hard to keep from crying. 

"Do you want to talk about it?" a voice says, and I look up, guiltily. Luka stands before me, concerned.

"No, not really," I tell him. "It's nothing. I just – I just should have maybe taken the rest of the week off."

I get up, eager to leave, eager to get away from his prying eyes. I know he only wants to help, but there's no one I can talk to, no one I can share this with. No one.

"Kerry."

"Yes?" I ask, turning around.

"If you need to talk – "

"Thank you Luka, but I'm fine. Really." And with that I open my locker, getting my things. "Just tell Mark that I had to leave. I'll be back on Monday, like I had planned."

Luka is silent as I fumble in my locker. My stethoscope gets tangled in my ID badge and I curse under my breath. Please, I pray. Please just get me out of here.

Luka crosses the room and touches my shoulder. "Something is obviously wrong. What is it, Kerry?" he asks in a low voice. "Did something happen while you were away?"

That question alone is enough to almost send me over the edge. I shake my head quickly, but Luka is not stupid and the look on his face tells me that he doesn't believe me.

"I went to see Carter in Atlanta," I admit to him, revealing nothing else.

"How is he?"

I hesitate. "I really don't know," I confess, and with tears in my eyes, I flee.

***

Back home, I pour myself a drink, a healthy slug of scotch, and stand in the kitchen, tossing it back in two swallows, feeling the burning at the back of my throat from the alcohol, from trying to stop myself from crying the entire way home. 

I glance over at the answering machine. The red light is blinking, five short blinks. I press play.

The first call is a hang up. So are the next three.

The last caller waits for long seconds after the beep, remaining silent. I know it's Carter. I know all of them are Carter. I'm not sure how I know this, but I do. The line finally disconnects and I erase all five empty messages.

My leg is aching terribly, and I walk slowly to the bathroom, opening the medicine cabinet, trying to find the Tylenol. I shove a few bottles around and then my fingers close on a different bottle.

I pull it from the medicine cabinet and look at it in surprise.

Vicodin, the label reads. 1-2 tablets every 4-6 hours as needed.

I shake the bottle and pills rattle around inside. I uncap it and peer in. I count seven pills.

My hands tremble. I can't imagine why this is still here – I haven't kept narcotics in the house in years, not since I stopped taking them. Could I have somehow missed this one bottle, tucked away behind the cough syrup, for all this time?

As if in response, my leg flares in pain and I have to lean against the sink for support.

I can just take one, I tell myself. Just one, and the pain will go away. It will go away so quickly. Vicodin always worked so well.

I stand for several long moments looking into the amber colored plastic bottle, at the white pills inside. They are likely expired. They are likely useless.

I shake one pill out and recap the bottle. I put the white tablet in my mouth and taste the bitterness on my tongue. I reach for a glass of water to wash it down and realize I've already swallowed it.

My hands tremble as I set the bottle on the edge of the sink and I look at myself in the mirror. Panic sets in and for a moment I contemplate vomiting the pill back up. It wouldn't be hard. I'm so terrified that I could very likely throw up just thinking about it.

Instead, I head for the bedroom. I shed my clothes quickly and crawl into bed, onto my side. The pill has obviously not expired too much; I can already feel it starting to work. It's been so long since I've taken them that I have no tolerance anymore and my head feels light. The shaking in my hands is gone; all I feel is groggy. The pain in my leg is already starting to ease up.

I fall asleep minutes later.

***

The phone again is what wakes me, although I don't reach it in time. I feel like I've been wrapped in gauze, at least thirty layers of it, and the phone sounds muffled. Slowly I come to the surface and hear the answering machine picking up, and my own voice, strong and clear, echoes from the kitchen.

"This is Kerry Weaver, I'm not available to take your call right now. Please leave a message and I'll get back to you as soon as I can."

Beep.

Silence.

I reach for the phone next to the bed. "Hello?" I mumble. Nothing. I know who it is. "Carter?"

"Why did you run, Kerry?" he asks, right in my ear.

I hang up.

***

Later, when I'm more alert, I get up and look at the bottle of Vicodin again. Six left. I can't bring myself to flush them down the toilet, so instead I bring them to the kitchen and hide them in one of the cabinets. 

Hide them. A bitter laugh escapes my throat. I've done a very bad job of hiding them. Especially since I know that they are two soup cans over, one tuna can back.

But I don't touch them again, and I don't get any more calls from Carter.

***

A week has passed since I've come home from Atlanta, and I'm better. I've put the whole thing away in the back of my head – all of it. The trip to Atlanta, making love with Carter, the Vicodin. I'm back at work and I'm back to normal. Everything is back to the way it should be.

And I'm relieved.

For the few days after I took the Vicodin, I contemplated everything that had happened. I played it over and over in my head until I was sick of myself, of my own bad decisions, my own thoughtless judgement calls. 

Carter hasn't called again. Every night when I get home, the red light of my answering machine is steady, no blinks, no messages. No hang ups. No Carter.

I only think of him when my defenses are down; it happened two days ago when I came home tired after a long day at work and slipped in a CD. I came to a track that he used to like, and I had to turn the entire stereo off altogether at the memory of him humming along.

I'm working on some paperwork in the lounge one afternoon when Peter Benton breezes in. "Hey, Kerry," he says. "Have you seen Carter?"

My heart beats irregularly for a moment. "What?"

"I picked him up at the airport earlier and he wanted to stop by here, but I lost him. He must have wondered off for a second when I went up to the OR with that GSW."

He's back?

My face must reflect the shock I feel. "It's been a month," Peter responds to my look and I nod.

"I'll go check at the desk," he says, and leaves me alone in the lounge. 

I gather up my papers in a hurry and shove them into a uneven pile. The thought of Carter somewhere in the ER terrifies me – there's only so many places he could be and all of them seem so close. I have to get some air. 

I hurry to the doors and limp to the ambulance bay, my leg throbbing as usual from the combination of stress and overuse; I've been on more shifts this week than off. Goddamn it, I curse inwardly. Can't I just get through one day without pain?

I stop short in the bay. Carter is leaning up against a wall, smoking a cigarette in silence.

He looks up and sees me and the look in his eyes makes my mouth goes dry.

"Dr. Weaver," he says to me coldly.

Dr. Weaver? Oh God, has it come to this?

I try to breathe, reminding myself that he has every right to be angry, every right to lose his head completely, to yell and shout and call me every name in the book. 

"I would say hello, but considering that you didn't bother saying goodbye, I don't know if I should bother," he says, inhaling a deep drag from his cigarette.

My heart contracts at that.

"And hanging up on me too," he continues. "Nice touch."

"How many times did you hang up on my answering machine?" I counter back weakly, but it doesn't matter – his hang ups are nothing compared to the damage I've done.

His face is dark, filled with anger and hurt. My mind jerks involuntarily back to the night in Atlanta, when his eyes were dark like that – only then it was from passion and not barely controlled rage. I want to flee. Desperately.

"Do you want to know what it was like to wake up and find you gone?" he asks me.

I shake my head. "Please, Carter – "

"No, I think you need to hear this. I really think you need to hear it." He takes another drag from his cigarette and exhales, dropping the cigarette to the ground where he crushes it viciously beneath his shoe. "I woke up and you weren't there. My first thought was that you were out on the balcony. Or taking a bath. But those thoughts evaporated pretty quickly. Let's face it – the room was only so big. And so quiet."

I have nothing to say. Nothing at all. There is no excuse for what I did, and I know it. I deserve everything that he wants to say.

"I noticed that your suitcase was gone right away. And then I looked for a note. I practically tore the room apart looking for a goddamn explanation."

I try to erase that image of him – frantic and furious – out of my head. It doesn't work; all I can see is his face as the realization dawned on him that he wasn't going to find anything.

Carter steps close to me, dangerously close. I skitter back a step or two, but he grasps my arm, tightly, painfully. I can smell him, the same as when I was in Atlanta, mixed with smoke from his cigarette. I want to apologize, I want to explain, I want to touch him…

"Do you have any idea what you did to me that night?" he asks, and I shake my head, fearful of his answer. "Do you have any idea at all?"

"Carter, I don't – I – " But none of my words form sentences; they are all stuck and jumbled in my throat.

"I think you've destroyed me," he mutters. "Congratulations."

And with that, he releases my arm and pushes me roughly back, away from him. I stumble slightly but I do not fall. He stalks back into the ER, leaving me alone in the ambulance bay, alone with my thoughts and my tears. Alone so I can begin the process of punishing myself.

***

I don't see Carter again that afternoon. I somehow manage to get back to work, to move from patient to patient, from one crisis to the next. But I'm not completely there. 

"Kerry!" Mark snaps his gloved fingers in front of me.

"What?"

"I said, maybe you could intubate him while I put in this chest tube." Mark is looking at me intently, and I feel the gazes of the nurses in the room.

"Yes," I answer, almost mechanically. "Number 8 ET tube," I request, and one is placed in my hand.

I need for this day to be over. My leg is pulsing with agonizing pain, and I lean on the gurney for support as I intubate smoothly.

***

You stumble/Out of a hole in the ground

A vampire/Or a victim

It depends on who's around

***

At the end of the day I drive home, grateful that I've taken the car and not the L. I never would have been able to get up and down the steps at the train without my leg screaming in pain. I can barely stand to put any more weight on it, but I manage to get in the front door. 

I kick my shoes off and head straight for the kitchen, pouring some scotch into the first glass I lay my hands on. I throw it back, desperate for relief, relief from the pain in my leg, from the pain in my heart.

It's not enough. It won't ever be enough. Nothing will ever be enough.

And then I remember the Vicodin.

***

It doesn't take me long to get to the Vicodin, poking around among the soup and the tuna to find the smooth bottle and hold it in my hand. Just holding the bottle makes me feel better, and that scares me. I finger the cap.

Don't, don't, I tell myself. The next thing you know you'll be trying to get a new prescription and you'll be back where you started. Right back where you started.

At that moment, I don't care. I don't care about anything. For a brief moment I wish there were more pills than give in the bottle and I think of Gabe Lawrence and I want to cry. 

"I can't do this," I whisper aloud. "I can't do this anymore."

I open the bottle, take two pills out, and swallow them.

The doorbell rings.

I set the bottle down on the kitchen counter and limp painfully out to the door, opening it to see Carter standing there.

"Are you here to finish your attack?" I ask bitterly.

He looks lost, weary. "Can I come in?" he asks me.

I stare at him. "I don't think that's a good idea, Carter. I'm really not in the mood for you tear me apart. I'm doing a good enough job of that on my own."

"Please, Kerry, let me come in," he asks again, his voice soft, and the sound of my first name on his lips softens me too, slightly, and I waver. "Please."

I finally step back and allow him in. He comes into the house, looking around, taking it all in. "I've missed this place," he tells me. "I never told you before, but this was the place I felt more at home in than anywhere else I've lived."

I shake my head. "I can't go down memory lane with you, Carter. Not tonight."

The Vicodin is starting to kick in already, thanks to the scotch. The pain in my leg is easing and my eyelids feel like weights are attached to them.

"I'm angry at you, Kerry," he informs me.

I'm not surprised; he's made that evident. "I'm angry at myself."

"You don't look well. Do you want something to drink?" he asks, suddenly concerned.

"I left the scotch out," I tell him. "In the kitchen."

I sink down onto the couch, grateful for the soft cushions. He returns a moment later, just as I have realized my mistake. 

In his hand is the bottle of Vicodin. On his face is a alarmed expression.

***

"Feeling a craving, Carter?" I ask him. "Go ahead. There's a few left in there." I can't believe I've said that. I have no idea where my words are coming from. He's the one who is supposed to be angry at me, not the other way around.

"Please tell me you didn't take these," he says, his eyes pleading.

I shake my head. "Can't do that. I'd be lying."

He sets the bottle down on the table and crosses the room to sit on the couch next to me. "Why?" he asks, despair in his voice. "Because of me? Because of what I said earlier today?"

"It's not because of you, Carter. You should understand that better than anyone else. It's never because of someone else. It's always because of the demons in your own head, because of your own weakness." 

"I'm scared for you, Kerry. I've never seen you this way."

"There's a lot of me that you haven't seen. I'm a cruel person. But you know that already."

He turns his head from side to side, emphatically. "I don't believe that. I don't believe that about you."

"I left!" I practically explode. "I left you there, alone in that room to wake up alone after – " I can't say the words. "After what happened. With no explanation. With no warning. It doesn't get any crueler than that."

My head is spinning. I get up anyway and head back into the kitchen. Carter follows me and watches me as I pour more scotch.

"How much have you had to drink?" he asks. "How many pills did you take?"

"Not enough of either," I reply sharply. "Not enough to make this go away."

I raise the glass to drink and his hand snakes up and grabs it. "Don't," he pleads. "Don't do this."

"Don't tell me what to do, Carter," I warn him. "If I want to destroy myself, you should let me. Jesus, you should help me." He doesn't let go of the glass and both of our fingers are wound around it, entwined, burning together. "Let go," I say to him.

He doesn't. "Kerry, I'm sorry for what I said earlier. I'm sorry. I'm – I'm hurt. I've been hurt since you left. I was angry."

"And you have every right to be. Let go of the glass."

"Please don't do this."

I twist my fingers free from the glass, from his fingers, and the glass slips from both of our hands and drops to the floor, shattering glass and scotch on the tile.

I look up at him, smelling the alcohol on the ground. My fear and my own self-loathing swirl around the room like vapors. 

"I want to be numb," I tell him. "Just let me do this."

"Do what?" he asks. "Take those pills? Drink yourself into a stupor? Mix the two and wind up dead in the ER? Is that what you want?"

My mind has gone cold and black. I actually have to think about it.

My eyes droop, from the combination of the one drink and the pills I had before he rang the bell. "I need – I just – "

He touches my arm, and I am crumbling inside. 

"Just go, Carter," I beg him. "Get out. Leave."

"I won't leave you like this."

I laugh, harsh. "Why not? I left you. Now it's your turn. Payback. You can get even, settle the score."

"I don't want that."

"Leave me alone. I want to be alone."

"I don't believe you."

"It's the truth."

"No," he says. "It's a lie. You're lying to me. You're lying to yourself." I shrug away from him and reach for the bottle of scotch on the counter. "Kerry. Please."

"I said get out, Carter!" I raise my voice, and the bottle at the same time. The pills and the alcohol have made my aim worse than usual, and when I let the bottle fly it's miles away from his head. The crashing sound when the glass hits the wall is loud and painful. Carter ducks amidst the spray of broken glass and scotch, and I realize in horror that if I actually could have aimed correctly, I could have seriously injured him.

He lifts his head, his eyes wide with fear and pain. 

"Just go home, Carter," I plead with him. "Leave me alone."

"I can't," he says.

"You can. And you should."

I walk through the kitchen, past him, through the shards of glass stinging the soles of my feet. I don't care. I don't care about anything anymore.

END of Disintegration

Song snippet is Stay (Faraway, So Close) by U2. Used without permisson, but I'm hoping no one will come after me for a measly few lines.


End file.
